Posted on 01/20/2009 7:11:10 PM PST by Frantzie
Sorry to post a vanity but I am looking at VOIP for the small office. I was going to go with Packet 8 where you buy the phone at Office Depot. $24.95 a month and you can add more lines at $4.95 a month.
I do not like the people behind Vonage - the Citrons. The family got fined heavily by the SEC in their last venture with their online brokerage.
A relative has magic Jack for $40. $20 for the jack, $20 for the first year. $20 a year after that. It is for the office.
I also need to switch my router. I bought a D-Link DIR-615 was QoS enhancement to improve the response for the VOIP. I am worried about trying to switch over the old Netopia router to the D-Link.
Any suggestions?
Magic Jack ...
Okay for a small business? Can you get an incoming 800 number? decent sound quality?
Packet 8 can do multiple lines. I just may need one other.
Thanks.
I really like my Magic Jack. Works 97% of the time.
It’s all crap. One line might get enough usable speed but -—.Get dsl. If you won’t then ask the neighbors. Good people...
I hate vonage as the caller ID always says Vonage Holdings, which is bad for a business. Packet 8 worked well but doesn’t offer some of the features a business needs.
www.ring9.com has a lot of features for small businesses if you’re looking for ACD, or follow me type features.
Depends on how many lines you need and what kind of image you want to present.
I work with someone who uses magic jack. He attends several on line meetings. All call drop at one hour mark and he must call back in to the meeting.
It only works when your PC is on and working. I’d sure hate to rely on the voice line it provides when getting tech support on the computer to which it is attached.
if you have hi-speed wireless internet... try Skype... if you plan on staying in the office.
I use it with my consulting to a dealer in Phila (I am in Hbg) and it works perfect. And cheap!
I’ve messed around with internet phone service in a vacation home. Started with Sunrocket. Worked fine for a year, then the company went bankrupt. Then tried Voip.com. Service was poor, lot’s of dead spots during calls.
I’ve had magic jack now for a few months, with mixed results. Sometimes it works fine, but is flaky at other times. Although I hear some have had good results. You might try it on a trial basis. The price is right.
More info coming via FReepmail.
Magic Jack is VoIP on a national scale. You will be able to select a phone number from your area code if you wish (or anywhere else) but perhaps not one from your local community. It seems to work fine, I just haven’t used it much as I have VoIP from a local provider already. The key is latency, as most broadband connections will have plenty of bandwidth. Satellite ISPs for example will not work due to the latency from the satellite link. Find a good broadband test site and test your connection for VoIP QoS over a period of several days and you’ll know whether it will work reliably.
I may need two lines, hold, maybe a littlke music onhold.
I do not need hook flashing, follow me. i want a professional image or features like a regular AT&T local tel co but I want to dump AT&T.
Jeffrey Citron of Vonage engaged in a major fraud and was fined by the SEC when he ran a Datek. He never should have been allowed near a public company again.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-5.htm
I would stay with AT&T (gag) instead of ever using vonage. Thanks.
I may need two lines, hold, maybe a littlke music onhold.
I do not need hook flashing, follow me. i want a professional image or features like a regular AT&T local tel co but I want to dump AT&T.
Jeffrey Citron of Vonage engaged in a major fraud and was fined by the SEC when he ran a Datek. He never should have been allowed near a public company again.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-5.htm
I would stay with AT&T (gag) instead of ever using vonage. Thanks.
Here is what I would do, get Magic Jack for making calls and a land line for receiving calls.
I don't think Internet phone has the reliability yet to be depended on in an emergency, or if you positively need to receive calls. Cable is not 24/7 no matter what they try and tell you.
Quality is fine, maybe even better than most phone lines. We have it hooked up on cable 8/1 broadband. You can't beat the price.
Also try skype, if you want sexy”grrl”, or luvkitten to call or chat you up at random. I had a skype number, I used when I was overseas, to call my wife. I was so glad she never saw the call history (even though I always ignored them); I would have never heard the end of it.
:-)
I have AT&T DSL but may go to Comcast cable Internet.
Does SkyPe have an incoming phone number people can call? I may keep one regular phone line with AT&T or Comcast.
Yeah, we find that calls east to west in the afternoon may not complete. So it suffers from traffic congestion.
But the cost is right, if you put one in and it doesn’t deliver, then the loss is small.
We have ours hooked to a three way DECT 6.0 digital portable and it sometimes loses it’s mind and needs to be rebooted, disconnect and reconnect with a power cycle.
For us it’s a keeper, so far.
OOMA
This is what my manager uses. The device cost $350 but you do not need a computer running to make it work. There are no fees for basic service after buying the box. He really likes it and it sounds great when I talk to him. I think he said that he could keep his local phone number. They also have business upgrades.
20 lines with Magic Jack? Thanks.
No fees for a local phone number? I am using it for loacal calls with a local number and will probably add an 800.
thanks.
I have cell phones and land line! When the power went out last year I still had my land line! No cell phones worked and no cable so no voip worked!
Don’t use Comcast, you have to pay for long distance.
Oddly enough Vonage uses their lines, if you have Comcast, but Vonage does not charge for long distance.
Comcast are arrogant thieves.
I know because I have them for TV & Internet.
pros:
price
has 911
I can send faxes (haven't tested receiving faxes yet)
voice mail
call waiting
caller id
I like it.
drawbacks:
can't port your old phone number
can't control number of rings(4) before voice-mail
for the money...it's great.
voice-mail is a wave file sent as an email attachment.
I control it by hooking it up to an answering machine that I set to 3 rings.
We had a huge wind storm a couple of years back. Internet and cell phones were useless, but the old AT&T land line worked fine.
I went from thinking MJ was the biggest ripoff of 2008 to thinking it was one of the best buys I have ever made. I paid $99 for 5 years of phone service. The difference was that my USB port was not supplying enough power. I bought an AC powered 4-port USB hub and have not had one problem since.
Thanks for a detailed analysis plus pros/cons.
Thanks to all the other responses too. Great info. I appreciate it.
I have been using SKYPE for over 2 years and I love it. I bought a linksys portable cordless for home use and I use my laptop for travel.
Unlimited long distance for US with voicemail is about $60.00 per year. (u get to select ur own phone #)
I have used my laptop with a headset from airports with no problem and when I travel to China is is $.021 per minute.
My personal selection was Magic Jack. It is faster than a regular phone, has a great addressbook and VoiceMail.
I have been robbed by AT&T the past two months with excessive bills for Internet ($70 a month) Go figure how they can charge double also continuing to charge for an office phone i had disconnected two months ago.
If you have even a modest amount of computer savvy, you will never again need to pay inflated prices for PBX capabilities.
My personal selection was Magic Jack. It is faster than a regular phone, has a great addressbook and VoiceMail.
I have been robbed by AT&T the past two months with excessive bills for Internet ($70 a month) Go figure how they can charge double also continuing to charge for an office phone i had disconnected two months ago.
Asterisk for a VOIP PBX. Open source...use whatever VOIP instruments (or soft phones on your PCs) that you’d like. You can make it as big an implementation or as small as you need.
Vyatta for an open source router. If you get the right sized processor, it will run as well as a Cisco 7XXX series router.
No reason to pay good money for the stuff if you don’t have to (’tho buy a maintenance contract for both to help defray the development costs — and also to answer questions when first setting up)
No.... 20+ lines.
Skype is excellent, and can also be used outside of the office, anywhere where a fast Internet connection is available. You can use either a computer or an 802.11 Skype phone.
BTW, I’m not associated with Skype, other than as a customer for the past 2 years. I’ve got their subscription for unlimited calls to anywhere in the US and Canada, along with a Skype-In number so landline phones can reach me. Around $70 per year for the whole thing.
bttt for Magic Jack information:)))
cool. my BIL has fast cable internet with a wifi system. Pretty cool, but they don’t use Skype because they just get 2 phones from Metro PCS
My son tried it for a couple of weeks. At first it seemed to work pretty well, except for an occasional beep. However, he decided against keeping it, because he started to have problems with static, the sound quality, and call reception. Hope this helps.
I was disappointed, too, because I really wanted to kick Cox telephone to the curb.
For calls in the U.S., are there ever any additional charges for the Magic Jack aside from your annual fee? I thought I had read somewhere that the only time you had free calling was when calling/receiving calls from other Magic Jack customers, but that you are charged a per minute fee if you call/receive calls from people without Magic Jack. That didn’t sound right from other things I’ve read, but since you actually use the Magic Jack, you would know from first hand experience.
There are no additional fees within the US to you. If someone is calling you long distance then there would or could be a fee to them depending on what they are using. You pay up front. I went for the $99/5years and that includes the magicjack. I think my phone bill turns out to be something less than $2 a month :)
Ping for later reading...
Heh. It wasn’t on the FAQ and I went to the help-line several times and they gave me the same ineffective remedy each time. We figured it out on a site independent of MJ for people who were not satisfied with MJ. When we were sure we could resolve the problem, we wondered why MJ wasn’t giving customers that information. I am glad they finally have it on their FAQ now. The last time I went to the help-line, just before I had lost my patience they told me it was my phone interfering with MJ because it was cordless. :))
Remember we were talking about Magic Jack? Looks like it might work for some people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.